


The Color Brown

by FrozenWings



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Cassandra Appreciation Week (Disney: Tangled), Gen, LITTLE CASS, One Shot, This thing has no plot, but i hope you like it anyway!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 08:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30085926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrozenWings/pseuds/FrozenWings
Summary: Prompt: Favorite ThingsCass doesn’t understand what the seamstress’s problem is; wasn’t it normal for little girls to want dresses that were their favorite color? Besides, she had a lot of very good reasons for brown being hers.
Relationships: Captain of Corona's Guard & Cassandra (Disney)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	The Color Brown

**Author's Note:**

> So, for me Cassandra Appreciation Week just so happens to coincide with a really busy week of academia. Yay. But I still managed to put together a little something; how could I not?
> 
> This fits in with the canon of my Untitled Young Cassandra series, but you don’t have to be following along with that to understand this. Happy reading!
> 
> Oh, almost forgot: takes place during the first fall Cass lived at the castle; she’s about four/five, depending on where you place her birthday (is there an agreed-upon birthday for her?).

Cass didn’t understand the funny look the castle seamstress was giving her. She had answered the lady’s question, after all, and in a very reasonable way too.

After all, there couldn’t possibly be a wrong answer for what color dress you wanted, right?

  
“Are you sure, dear?” the woman pressed, brows pinched as her eyes, perpetually squinted from a lifetime of sewing perfect seams, searched Cass’s face for any trace of sarcasm or jest or sulky contrariness. “I have plenty of pretty colors that would look very nice on you. Blues, reds, greens…”

She started to glide about the room as she spoke, skirts swishing and voice trailing off as she filled her hands with swatches of thick woolen fabric, the type suitable for, as her dad had put it, ‘winter dresses.’

Because that was why she was here in the seamstress’s workroom rather than outside in the crisp early-fall air watching her daddy and the other guards run through training drills or visiting with the horses in the stables or hunting through the gardens for Something Interesting (last week she found a teeny tiny skull from a long-dead mouse; that’d been really neat and fun too when she discovered that it had the magic power to make almost anyone leap three feet in the air and scream at the top of their lungs).

It was getting colder out, and her current wardrobe of thin cotton dresses, though perfect for the blazing heat that doused Corona’s summer days, were far too easily penetrated by frisky autumn breezes and creeping coolness, leaving her arms covered in gooseflesh during the day and all of her shivering at night as she sat closer to the hearth fire than her daddy would have liked. So, as soon as they finished breakfast, he had dropped her off to spend the morning being measured for dresses in, as he had put it when she asked, “Any color you want, sweetie, just so long as it keeps you warm.”

  
Her dad wasn’t picky about things like that.

  
But the seamstress, apparently, was.

  
“See how nice?” She wheedled, fanning out a woolen rainbow. “All bright and cheerful. And they go so nicely with your pretty hair and eyes.” Cass bit her lip, reaching up for a strand of the ‘pretty’ hair to wind around a finger, ‘pretty’ eyes darkening just a bit with irritation. First, she didn’t care about being ‘pretty.’ She was tough and fearless, like her daddy, and that was all that mattered (plus a part of her always whispered that compliments like that were a lie; she had no idea where that came from). Second, she had no idea what the lady meant by ‘going with her hair and eyes.’ Of course those colors would; really, any of them would. The dress would go where her hair and eyes and the rest of her went because she’d be wearing it (spending all day sewing must make you weird; she resolved right then and there to never learn how to so much as thread a needle).

  
The lady freed a scrap as orange as pumpkin and held it out to her with a coaxing smile. “Wouldn’t you rather have your dresses be nice colors like this?”

  
“No.” (especially that color; orange wasn’t nice. Carrots were orange, and she hated carrots).

  
“But, dearie, brown?”

  
Cass nodded smartly at that, a satisfied smile curling her lips as she thought about her answer. Brown was her absolute favorite color, a shade she liked more than blue, more than purple, even more than shining gold.

  
She liked brown because all her favorite things were brown.

  
Owls were brown, both the real kind and the little plush one she cuddled with at night and who guarded her pillow during the day. His brown was soft and fuzzy and cozy like the feeling in her chest as she nestled under a pile of blankets at night waiting to drift off to sleep, the world quiet except for the sounds of her daddy getting a last few pieces of paperwork done before turning in. It was a safe brown, because there, tucked into bed in the room she shared with her daddy with him watching over her, little owl held tight in her arms, nothing bad could happen. She liked that feeling.

  
Horses were brown, most importantly, her Daddy’s horse, Romulus. His brown, a deep color that had some red mixed in with it (she once heard someone call it ‘blood bay’ or something), was alive, alert, and strong, a perfect reflection not only of his rider, but of him, Romulus, one of the finest horses in the stables. When the stableboys groomed him before her daddy rode out, his coat shone until it almost looked more red than brown, and as he pranced through the yard, head high and proud, the sun skipped across his rippling flanks, shining, gleaming, making him seem like something out of one of her storybooks. Better, even. It was an adventurous brown, because when her dad lifted her up to sit on the saddle before him, that’s what happened: an adventure. She craved that feeling.

  
Weapons were brown. Well, not all brown; they were really more gray and silver, but parts of them were. Handles on maces, arrows resting in quivers, bows holding their breath in anticipation of being drawn, and scabbards waiting for swords to fill them with a *chwish* when they were done being deadly; all of them were different shades of brown. And each of those shades, often criss-crossed with scratches and nicks and shiny spots where they’d been held and handled for more years than could be counted, told a different story: of adventures had, of deeds done, of bravery. That’s the kind of brown they were: brave. Something heroes were, something she wanted to one day be. She dreamed of that feeling.

  
Last and best of all, her daddy’s eyes were brown. When he called her to come along with him in the mornings on the days he was working around the castle; when he wrapped her in a hug upon returning home on the days he wasn’t; when he laughed as he roughhoused with her and she won and sat on his chest like a conqueror atop their felled foe; when he read her a story and tucked her in at night, saying in his gruff voice “ ‘Night, Cass. I’m here if you need anything.” (those last words were so, so important). They were always brown, warm and familiar and comforting.

Of course, they were also brown when he wasn’t pleased with her, the color darkening and hardening to almost black when he dragged her away from something she shouldn’t have been standing close to, pulled her down off of some high place she could never quite remember how she got to in the first place, or any time she was hurt or upset. They were still his, though, and still brown, and so she still loved them, even if seeing them like that caused something in her chest to droop and shrivel and tremble as she worried that he would stop wanting her. But he never did, and without fail the brown always returned to warm familiarity and the comforting feeling that, for now, she was still his daughter. She loved that feeling. It was the best in the world.

  
Brown was safe, brown was adventurous, brown was brave, brown was love. All were things she wanted to have and live and be; no other color was all those things. Brown was the color of her life.

  
Which was why now, in the seamstress’s workroom, surrounded by bolts of cloth in every color imaginable and then some, Cass continued to nod her head and insist. “Brown.”

  
The seamstress heaved a very long, very deep sigh, the kind Cass knew from experience was reserved especially for her when she was being, well, like herself, and rolled her eyes to the ceiling, muttering under her breath. “Lord, who ever heard of such a child; she only wants brown.”

Then, to Cass with a stiff, end-of-her-rope smile. “How about a compromise?” (Cass knew what that was from hanging around the captain’s office during meetings and stuff) “I’ll make you some brown dresses and some in a different color. After all, no one has dresses all one color anyway.”

Cass didn’t care how the rest of Corona dressed, but since the woman was clearly not about to let her become a trendsetter and was dead-set on her picking not-brown colors, she gave an acquiescing nod; at least she said she’d make _some_ brown dresses (which was better than none; she’d just make sure to wear those the most). “Good,” the woman sighed, shoulders slumping in relief. She presented the swatches of fabric to Cass again. “So, which ones do you like?” After a long, thinking moment, Cass’s ivory finger landed on a piece of very, very, very dark red, almost the exact shade of the ‘standard issue’ tunics worn as part of the guard’s uniform (not as nice as brown, but still very pleasing).

  
The seamstress’s lips pursed in a frown at her choice, but she didn’t question it (after all, she _had_ offered it to her). “Alright, and can you pick one more?”

Cass’s eyes drifted away from the swatches and roved about the room, scanning the bolts in search of something her eyes would linger on that wasn’t beautiful brown. Finally they did, and she pointed up at a shelf, grinning.

Squinting eyes followed her indicating arm to the bolt…and every one of the faint wrinkles on the woman’s face drooped.

  
“Gray?”

  
“Mmm-hmm.”

  
Because gray was her second favorite.

  
Forget her hair and eyes; gray would match the swords!

**Author's Note:**

> *the voice in the back of my head the entire time I was writing this:* _Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens..._
> 
> Cass’s favorite color is brown. I will never give up that head canon.
> 
> ...And there you have it! Thank you so much for reading; please leave a kudos or comment if you liked it. Hopefully I’ll be able to post things for a few more prompts later in the week (maybe the weekend); if not, well, as far as I’m concerned any week is a good week to appreciate Cass!


End file.
